Once Upon a White Man

I’ve enjoyed this book. The print is large, so I’ve not needed my reading specs.

Atkins was born in Rhodesia, as it then was. He is a bit younger than I am, yet our paths probably crossed at some stage, because he mentions various places and times that are familiar.

He was involved, and wounded, in the Rhodesian Bush War – also known as the Second Chimurenga or the Zimbabwe War of Liberation.

He mentions Clem Tholet, who sang Rhodesians Never Die, a song of determined stubbornness on the part of the whites in that country. Like many others, Atkins thought that in the 1990s Zimbabwe had turned a corner with Chidzero’s economic reforms, but it was not to be, and the entire fabric of the country rapidly disintegrated under Mugabe’s corrupt rule. By 2001 Atkins had had enough, and he moved with his family to Perth, Australia. More than a third of Zimbabwe’s population have also fled their country of birth.